EDINBURGH Reivers opened their Tri-Continental Cup campaign with an easy 59-5 victory over Uruguay A at Fletcher's Field, Toronto, last night.
The Scots opened up a four-try lead at the interval, enabling the rest of the match to effectively become a useful training run for the new season.
Reivers coach Ian Rankin said: ''Conditions were very tricky with a gusting and swirling wind preventing fluent play.
''There were also difficulties surrounding the varying interpretations of the laws involving both sides and the referee - but once we settled down we strung some fine moves together.''
Edinburgh broke the deadlock when scrum half Iain Fairley burst through from close range.
Debutant flanker Simon Taylor, who played such a major part in Heriot's Premiership triumph last term, ploughed over for the second touchdown.
Further tries before the break by full back Stuart Lang and blind side flanker Cammy Mather ruled out any chance of a Uruguayan success.
Duncan Hodge was also in great form with the boot, converting all the first-half scores.
Gregor Hayter switched to the second row and marked a superb display with two tries in the second half.
Hodge also went over twice and added three more conversions, while Taylor continued to impress by completing his double.
The South Americans snatched a late consolation effort, but Rankin said he was ''very satisfied'' with his side's overall performance.
Scotland's other tourists, Glasgow Caledonians, were into their stride early in the first match of their Canadian trip against Ontario, winning 65-21.
Donny MacFadyen grabbed the first try with the match only a minute old.
Playing into a gale force wind, Ian Jardine was next on the scoresheet four minutes later and in the eleventh minute Shaun Longstaff crossed for the first of his two first half tries.
The Reds were bringing their wings and full back into play at every opportunity, and slick hands saw Gareth Flachart romp in with 16 minutes gone.
With imaginative running off the ball, the visitors were handling at every opportunity and restricting Ontario to using the wind by kicking for position.
This saw them slot three penalties and excellent continuity put Longstaff over for his second try. Flockhart followed, grabbing his brace in 37 minutes and with Tommy Hayes landing three conversions despite the wind, Glasgow Caledonians turned round 36-14 ahead.
Longstaff grabbed his hat trick four minutes into the second half and added a fourth eight minutes later with Ontario crossing for their second try between Longstaff's efforts.
Alan Bulloch came in from full back to score his first try with 14 minutes of the second spell gone. Jon Stewart celebrated his first game for the Reds with a try on the half hour and Bulloch completed the scoring with a try six minutes from time.
Hayes added another two conversions in a match described by David Jordan as '' a good opening performance showing plenty of promise in which we created a lot of openings.''
The only problem for the Reds was the departure in the first half of lock Steve Griffiths with an ankle injury.
qA year ago, Heriot's won the Preston Lodge Tens, beating no less than Glasgow Caledonians in the final - and no-one noticed.
They took the silverware back to Goldenacre again on Saturday, beating Boroughmuir 24-7 in the final and losing only one score in the process. All eyes are now on their defence of the league title.
''We're delighted to start where we left off,'' was the comment of Heriot's spokesman Fraser Dall. ''It'll be difficult to win the title successively, but, given the quality of our squad, there's no reason why not.'' Results:
Round One - Heriot's 47, Selkirk 0; West of Scotland 14, Musselburgh 8; Watsonians 34, Dundee HSFP 10; Kelso 7, Preston Lodge 17; Haddington 5, Jed-Forest 24; Glasgow Hawks 12, Kirkcaldy 29; Gala 5, Currie 27; Boroughmuir 20, Peebles 7.
Round Two - Heriot's 22, West 0; Watsonians 10, Preston Lodge 14; Jed-Forest 0, Kirkcaldy 15; Currie 5, Boroughmuir 24.
Semi-finals - Heriot's 48, Preston Lodge 0; Kirkcaldy 12, Boroughmuir 15.
Final - Heriot's 24, Boroughmuir 7.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article